Japan elects new premier to push economic revival
Long-time aide of former premier Shinzo Abe, Yoshihide Suga has officially become Japan's new prime minister to steer the country out of an economic recession and the Covid-19 crisis.
Japan's parliament today elected former chief cabinet secretary Suga as the country's 99th prime minister following his landslide victory in an LDP leadership election on 14 September. Abe officially resigned earlier today as the country's longest-serving premier.
Suga has vowed to continue Abe's economic policies to revive the world's third biggest economy, as well as diplomatic policies in the face of growing geopolitical challenges. He has retained most of the key cabinet ministers from the previous administration, including foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi, finance minister Taro Aso, and trade and industry (Meti) minister Hiroshi Kajiyama, according to new chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato. Kato served as health minister in Abe's government.
Kajiyama's Meti is due to revise the country's energy policy by mid-2021 after the last revision in 2018 highlighted a focus on renewable power. A new round of talks on energy policy direction launched in recent months as the ministry seeks to adjust policies on energy security risks triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and increased geopolitical uncertainty.
Meti continues to back nuclear power but is mulling scrapping half of the country's coal-fired power generation capacity by 2030 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Shinjiro Koizumi, son of former premier Junichiro Koizumi, is staying on as environment minister for a second term. He has been critical of Japan's support for coal-fired power generation. The government in July toughened conditions on state financing of overseas coal power projects following inter-ministry talks prompted by Koizumi.
Premier Suga has named former defense minister Taro Kono as a new cabinet minister to lead administrative reform. Nobuo Kishi, younger brother of former premier Abe, has replaced Kono as defense minister.
Related news posts
Q&A: Ramaco adding production, sees market growth
Q&A: Ramaco adding production, sees market growth
New York, 16 April (Argus) — Randall Atkins is a founder and chief executive of metallurgical coal producer Ramaco Resources. He also has been involved in energy-related investment and financing activity for over 40 years. In this Q&A, edited for length and clarity, he discusses effects from the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse, his outlook for coal and the company's research projects. What effect has the Key bridge collapse and Port of Baltimore closing had on Ramaco and the US coal industry in general? Like most things of that tragic nature, it is going to take longer than everyone expects to actually solve the problem. I think where it is going to impact producers probably more is on the rails. There will be a need for...producers to rearrange stockpiles and to rearrange where they are going to try and ship, even at reduced levels. Particularly, CSX is going to have an immense logistical complexity to deal with over the near-term. We do not ship from Baltimore. We have not seen any problems, knock on wood, with our rail shipments post the incident. What are your long-term projections for metallurgical coal given expectations that low-volatile coal reserves will shrink in coming decades and the steel industry could be in oversupply? Low vol coal has traditionally been the highest priced coal and the dearest, if you will. High vol A coal has over the last few years grown in importance, and to the extent that there is any new increase in production in the US, it's high vol. What we perceive is that there is going to be a crowding in the high vol space. As a result, our increase in production is primarily in low vol. As far as the demand side is concerned, we do not believe that blast furnace steel demand is going to decline anytime soon. There's a lot of noise from the green community that hydrogen is going to replace coal in blast furnaces. We took some advice on that from the IEA…and when that question was posed (to IEA), the answer that was given was it would take about $1.5 trillion to build a pilot plant using hydrogen by 2035 and probably about another equal or greater sum to build a commercial facility by 2040. So, I don't lose a lot of sleep on the demand for coal for blast furnaces. What I do see shifting, however, is the US has held relatively steady at about 20mn short tons (18.1mn metric tonnes) of met coal demand over the last 10 to 15 years. The growth is clearly overseas, and the growth is clearly at the moment in Asia. When we started back in 2017, and 2018 was really our first year of production, we predominantly sold coal domestically; I think 80pc of our coal went to US steel mills. Now that is almost reversed. We're going to sell probably this year, 70pc overseas, and about a third or less domestically. With Europe moving towards electric arc furnace technology and significant new blast furnace capacity coming online in Asia, what kind of role will the US play as a coal supplier over the coming years? It is cheaper to use a blast furnace than electric arc. And the steel that they (Asian companies) mostly require is the heavier steel for cars and buildings and things of that nature. So, they have a bias towards blast furnace capacity. The US and Europe are very developed economies that are trying to go and wean away from coal, (while) the rest of the world is aggressively moving further into coal. People will shake their heads at the cost that European and American consumers will start to have to pay for that privilege. We see market growth is still there, but it's a different kind of growth. It will be more in the Asian markets, predominantly some in Europe, some in South America and Africa. The low vol coal demand in Asia is extremely strong because while they are able to buy high vol product from Australia very inexpensively, they do not have the low vol production. They need that to blend up to get the proper mix in their blast furnaces. There is a very good future for low vol, and that is the direction we are positioning ourselves. How confident is Ramaco about securing its investments in the longer run given the emphasis on ESG? What I see is sort of a dichotomy. In the thermal coal business, there's not a lot of investment in new mining there for the obvious reason that their customer base is declining. On the met side, it is a bit shortsighted from an investment standpoint because of the composition of the ownership of met coal companies. Virtually every major metallurgical coal producer except for us went through bankruptcy and post-bankruptcy proceedings. Their board composition became essentially distressed debt investors...Their interest was not developing a long-term coal company. Strategically their vision was: "How can we most quickly get money back out of that coal company?" We are certainly the only coal company that is doubling in size. We produced a little under 4mn st last year. We will be at about 4.5mn st this year. We can maybe go higher, depending upon the market. The market is not strong right now. The other issue (for coal producers) even when they weren't doing special dividends, is they've now shifted to doing large-scale share buybacks. You are starting to see the cost curve increase for most domestic coal producers. What you haven't seen, but I think you will probably find over the next probably 18 to 24 months, is you will begin to see depletion kick in. The amount of coal that they are able to produce from their existing operation will begin to decline. And that is strictly a result of not investing in new mine production. My approach was to kind of be a little bit of an outlier and then approach coal to products as an alternative use, certainly for thermal coal. And that, of course, brought us to rare earth (mineral extraction). Do you have funding for Ramaco's rare earth materials projects? Let me step back one step. We introduced the idea that we actually had rare earth (deposits) in May 2023….When we sent the samples to be tested, they tested them as if they were hard minerals. In other words, they did not combust off the organic material. What we have done since then, is we went back and we had samples that were probably 200-300 parts per million. From a commercial standpoint, we have kind of crossed the Rubicon that this is indeed sufficiently concentrated that it makes commercial sense. Now what we are doing is we are going through a process of further chemical analysis and testing to determine what is the best extraction and refinement technique. And the last point you raised was financing. We have a very nice growing mining metallurgical business, which can provide the funding to do whatever we want to do on rare earth. I am not too concerned about our financing capability. Any updates on your coal-to-carbon product projects ? We have looked at a number of different things with the national labs. We started looking at carbon fiber, which could be made from coal and we have got some patents around some very interesting processes. The areas that we are now focusing on...are using coal to make synthetic graphite. The other thing we are working on is using coal for direct air capture. We are considering going into a pilot phase sometime starting later this year with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on a synthetic graphite plant. As far as direct air capture, we probably have more work to do. We are also working on that with Oak Ridge. But I would hope that sometime by 2025, certainly 2026, we would perhaps have our first product, quote unquote, to be able to offer into the market. And it would be delightful if it was synthetic graphite. By Elena Vasilyeva Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Australian new environment agency to speed up approvals
Australian new environment agency to speed up approvals
Sydney, 16 April (Argus) — The Australian federal government announced today it will introduce new legislation in the coming weeks to implement the second stage of its Nature Positive Plan, which includes setting up a national environment protection agency to speed up approval decisions. The planned Environment Protection Australia (EPA) will initially operate within the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water until it transitions to become an independent statutory agency, with "strong new powers and penalties" to better enforce federal laws, the government said on 16 April. The EPA chief will be an independent statutory appointment, similar to the Australian federal police commissioner, so that "no government can interfere" with the new agency's enforcement work. The agency will be able to audit businesses to ensure they are compliant with environment approval conditions and issue environment protection orders to anyone breaking the law. Penalties will be increased, with courts able to impose fines of up to A$780mn ($504mn) or jail terms for up to seven years in cases of extremely serious intentional breaches of federal environment law. EPA will also be tasked with speeding up development decisions, including project assessments in areas such as renewable energy and critical minerals. Almost A$100mn will be allocated to optimise the approval processes, with its budget directed to support staff to assess project proposals and help businesses comply with the law. A new independent body Environment Information Australia (EIA) will also be created to provide environmental data to the government and the public through a public website. EIA will need to develop an online database giving businesses quicker access to data and helping EPA to make faster decisions. It will also need to publish state of environment reports every two years. The government said that an audit ordered by environment minister Tanya Plibersek last year found that around one in seven developments could be in breach of their offset conditions, when a business had not properly compensated for the impact a development was having on the environment, highlighting "the need to urgently strengthen enforcement". The planned new legislation is part of the federal government's reform of Australia's environmental laws including the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Resource project decisions are currently made by the environment minister, with the move to an independent agency will removing any perception of political interference in such decisions, the government said when it first announced the reforms in late 2022. The first stage of the reform was completed late last year with new laws passed to create the Nature Repair Market, with further stages expected to be implemented in the future, the government said. Tight timing Resources industry body the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia (CMEWA) welcomed the announcement that the federal government will take a "staged approach" to the implementation of the reforms but noted the timing of EPA's implementation was "tight". "We continue to hold reservations about the proposed decision-making model and will continue to advocate for a model that balances ecologically sustainable development considerations and includes the [environment] minister as the decision maker," CMEWA chief executive Rebecca Tomkinson said. The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) said that it had been advocating for the creation of EIA, whose future collated data "will provide greater certainty and reduced costs for both government and project proponents", which "may shave years off project development". But it was cautious about potential "unintended consequences" stemming from more bureaucracy. "Australia has one of the most comprehensive environmental approvals processes in the world and the MCA has been clear about the significant risks of duplicative, complex and uncertain approvals processes pose to the minerals sector, the broader economy and the environment if we do not get this right," it warned. By Juan Weik Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
La deuda de Pemex sobresale en el panorama electoral
La deuda de Pemex sobresale en el panorama electoral
Mexico City, 15 April (Argus) — La campaña presidencial de México termina en menos de dos meses, pero aunque ambas candidatas proponen una revolución verde en el sector de la energía, ninguna de ellas ha propuesto un plan viable para evitar la implosión financiera de la empresa estatal Pemex. Claudia Sheinbaum, candidata de continuidad para la política energética nacionalista del Presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador, anunció el mes pasado su estrategia energética, comprometiéndose a aumentar la producción de petróleo y gas de Pemex, aumentar el rendimiento de las refinerías y la producción petroquímica, desarrollar una industria nacional de litio y buscar un nuevo enfoque en la generación de energía renovable. La antigua jefa de gobierno de la Ciudad de México no ha proporcionado detalles sobre ninguna de estas políticas, pero es difícil conciliar su compromiso con una ampliación de las energías renovables con un límite en la inversión del sector privado sin depender en gran medida del aumento de la financiación de la estatal de electricidad CFE. La política de Sheinbaum en materia de energías renovables es la única desviación de la agenda energética de López Obrador, aunque las agencias de calificación, los inversores y los analistas coinciden en que es probable que Pemex incurra en impago sin una amplia reforma estructural. Pemex tenía una deuda total de $106,100 millones a finales de 2023 y se enfrenta a $10,000 millones en vencimientos de deuda este año. El impulso del gobierno para aumentar el rendimiento de las refinerías ha generado pérdidas de miles de millones de dólares para Pemex. Solo en 2023, la división de refinación de Pemex reportó una pérdida de $4,400 millones, una mejora con respecto a una pérdida de $11,000 millones el año anterior. De 2019 a 2023, la división de refinación de la empresa registró más de $46,000 millones en pérdidas. López Obrador puso el rescate de Pemex y sus refinerías en el centro de su administración. Pero a pesar de no detener la espiral de deuda de la empresa, la disminución de la producción de crudo, el empeoramiento del récord de seguridad y el aumento de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, sus políticas han tenido un coste que Sheinbaum no ha querido refutar públicamente. En su lugar, se compromete a lanzar el proyecto de la refinería Olmeca de 340,000 b/d de la empresa, que ya tiene dos años de retraso y ha costado al menos el doble del presupuesto original de $8,000 millones, dinero que las agencias de calificación afirman que debería haberse dirigido al negocio principal de Pemex en la exploración y producción. El apoyo gubernamental a Pemex, por un total de más de $52,000 millones entre 2019 y 2023, ha sido incapaz de mover la aguja en sus métricas financieras u operativas, y ahora amenaza la calificación crediticia soberana de México. Sheinbaum ha evitado abordar públicamente la carga de la enorme deuda de Pemex, proponiendo únicamente "niveles de deuda aceptables en el sector de la energía". Pero dada la importancia de Pemex para el proyecto político del partido Morena, además los cientos de miles de puestos de trabajo que dependen de Pemex, no se puede permitir que la empresa incumpla. Por otro lado, la candidata de oposición Xóchitl Gálvez pide poner fin al "caos financiero" en Pemex, diversificar su negocio hacia iniciativas de bajas emisiones de carbono, políticas rigurosas de emisiones, el cierre de sus refinerías más contaminantes, un nuevo enfoque en renovables y una reapertura de la industria energética a la inversión del sector privado. Sin embargo, a pesar de su perspectiva más favorable para la inversión privada, Gálvez aún no ha ofrecido una solución detallada para la situación financiera de Pemex. Sus planes para Pemex pueden ser demasiado radicales para los votantes, especialmente dentro del importante sindicato de trabajadores del petróleo, que repudió rápidamente sus llamados el mes pasado para cerrar dos refinerías. Incluso si ganara, la oposición que representa podría tener dificultades para acordar un camino a seguir para Pemex. Si la próxima administración vuelve a abrir la puerta a la inversión del sector privado, el nuevo gobierno se enfrentará a un esfuerzo lento para reconstruir los reguladores de la energía que han sufrido de baja inversión en los últimos seis años. Pero será el tamaño de la posible victoria de Sheinbaum lo que determinará el futuro del sector de la energía mexicano. Una mayoría convincente podría permitirle aprobar las grandes reformas energéticas que eludieron a López Obrador y seguir limitando la participación del sector privado en el sector energético, justo cuando la inversión directa extranjera en México está en auge en otras industrias. Por Rebecca Conan Producción de crudo en México Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Stakes look low in Washington’s Venezuela dilemma
Stakes look low in Washington’s Venezuela dilemma
Washington, 15 April (Argus) — The US administration's decision to temporarily lift oil sanctions against Venezuela in October last year relied on the premise that economic incentives would prompt Caracas to hold a competitive presidential election. But either the theory was wrong or the incentives were insufficient to encourage Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro to consider exiting the scene. The US wants Venezuela to allow credible opposition candidates to run in the latter's presidential elections on 28 July, and set this as a condition for extending sanctions relief beyond a looming 18 April deadline. But the Maduro government has prevented key opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from running. The main non-government affiliated candidate allowed to run in the election, governor of the oil-rich Zulia state Manuel Rosales, is viewed with scepticism in Washington. An election in which "only those opposition candidates with whom Maduro and his representatives feel comfortable" can participate will not be considered competitive enough for the US sanctions relief to continue, the US State Department says. Colombian president Gustavo Petro appeared to be mounting a last-ditch effort this week to mediate between Maduro and the opposition. Petro also wants to make it easier for Colombian oil firm Ecopetrol to expand business with its neighbor, including putative plans for gas imports from Venezuela. But doing so requires a massive change of US policy. "The US government looks a little more interested in alleviating sanctions than the sanctioned party," Caracas-based economist Tamara Herrera says. "Barring a grand gesture" by the Maduro government, the US is likely to reimpose sanctions, but perhaps grant specific carve-outs more freely, she says. Maduro's reneging on last year's accord with the opposition over the competitive election comes as no surprise to Washington-based critics of his government. "We've done everything we can to give economic inducement to the regime to behave differently," think-tank Center for Strategic and International Studies' Americas programme director Ryan Berg says, estimating the benefit to Caracas from sanctions relief at $6bn-10bn since October. "I just don't see that they've really given anything" in return. Leading US senators from both parties agree, calling on the White House this week to reimpose the sanctions after 18 April. Do the sanctioned crude shuffle But the six-month period during which Venezuela's state-run PdV was allowed to sell oil freely to any buyer and to invite foreign investment has hardly provided the economic benefits expected in October. India has emerged as a major new destination for Venezuelan crude, importing 152,000 b/d in March. The sanctions relief has not significantly affected US-bound Venezuelan volumes, which averaged 133,000 b/d last year. Even before the October waiver, Washington had allowed Chevron to lift oil from its joint venture with PdV, solely into the US. That exception for Chevron will remain in place. Undoing the US sanctions regime against Venezuela has provided unintended market incentives. Chinese imports of Venezuelan Merey, often labeled as Malaysian diluted bitumen, have been lower since October. Independent refiners in Shandong, which benefited from wide discounts on the sanctioned Venezuelan crude, cut back imports to just a fraction of pre-relief levels. By contrast, state-controlled PetroChina was able to resume imports. The possible reimposition of US sanctions is reflected in the widening Merey discount to Brent ( see chart ). Venezuela's rekindling of a border dispute with Guyana is also irking many countries that might come to its defence, and US elections in November could make the prospects of a US deal with Maduro even less likely. Hopes for a renaissance in oil or democracy in Venezuela seem ever further away. By Haik Gugarats Chinese imports of Venezuelan crude Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Business intelligence reports
Get concise, trustworthy and unbiased analysis of the latest trends and developments in oil and energy markets. These reports are specially created for decision makers who don’t have time to track markets day-by-day, minute-by-minute.
Learn more